Colour Theory
How to make your images work better
More than 200 years ago Johan
Wolfgang Van Goete wrote a
book about colour.
He realised that colour had a
special e ect on our brain and
mood.
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a
German poet, playwright, novelist,
scientist, statesman, theatre director, and
critic. His works include plays, poetry,
literature and aesthetic criticism, and
treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour.
He is considered to be the greatest
German literary figure of the modern era.
So he had a lot of things going on….
Red:
Love and passion, but also
danger, blood and aggression
Red symbolism
It has also been found to increase
heart rates. Psychologically it is meant
to create excitement, increase
appetite and thirst, something that
may hark back to picking berries as
cave dwellers. This is why a lot of
food packaging and supermarket
branding is red.
Blue:
Con dence and trust. Colour of
harmony, loyalty and
compassion. It is the most
popular colour.
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Yellow:
Good and evil, optimism +
jealousy. Also understanding and
betrayal.
These 3 colours make up the
primary spectrum.
Green:
Health, nature, freshness and
peace, but also feelings of
jealousy and envy.
Orange:
Emotions and Warmth. It is
connotated with fun and youth.
Purple:
Has a calming e ect. But it has
connotations with fantasy and
mystical realms. It is linked with
science ction, but also mystery,
death and things unattainable.
These 3 colours are secondary
because they are all made from
primary colours.
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Tertiary colours
Blue-green
Yellow-orange
Red-purple
They have a double worded name
because they are made up of a
primary and secondary colour.
Basically they are in-between colours.
Black:
Is a strong colour, durable,
elegant, in some cultures black
is the colour of regret, despair
and it’s overwhelming.
White:
White is the colour of innocence,
delicacy, purity or virginity. It is also
considered elegant and in some
cultures has the role of black in ours.
Along with intensity of colours, we
can distinguish moods, pastels bring
calmness. While saturation indicates
passion and dynamics.
What emotional
impact do you want
from your images?
Colour harmonies
=
Catch the attention of viewer.
Here are the colour
combinations that do this….
Monochromatic
harmony
This scheme contains di erent
tones, shades and tints of the
same hue. This is very pleasing
to the eye- cohesive. Used in
cinematography
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Analoguos
Colours that sit next to each
other on the colour wheel e.g.
hello and green. It gives pleasing
and relaxed visuals. Green is
very close to yellow -limited
amount of hues.
Analogous
complimentary or
accented analogous
Putting a warm accent colour
with a cool colour palette
(purple, blue and green with red)
Or the other way round (pink, red
and orange with green)
Complimentary
colours
2 colours or hues that are
opposite to each other on the
colour wheel. This is less
relaxing as they constantly make
each other look brighter.
In cinematography the most
popular combination is teal and
orange.
Split
complimentary:
Is a variation of the complimentary
one. In addition to the base colour
it uses the two colours adjacent to
it’s compliment.
E.g putting red with purple and
green. Strong visual contrast as
complimentary but less tension.
Split complimentary is good for
beginner because it is hard to go
wrong.
Triad/triadic
This is using 3 colours evenly
spread across the colour when.
It tens to be vibrant even if you
use pale or unsaturated colours.
E.g Blue, pink and yellow
Double split
complimentary:
Consists of two pairs of
complimentary forming an X on
the colour wheel. If you prefer
natural colour schemes that’s
ne I’m just showing you what’s
possible…..
Orange and blue, purple and
green
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Dyadic harmony
It consists of 2 colours which are
quite close to each other on the
wheel but separated by one or
two hues. E.g green paired with
a yellowy orange
Colour balance
• We have a psychological need to maintain balance. All colour systems are based on
3 parameters:
• Hue - pure colour
• Saturation - the richness/intensity
• Brightness - Luminosity/lightness
Tone, Tint, Shade
• Adding grey creates a tone.
• Tone = Hue + grey
• Tint = Hue + white
• Shade = Hue + black
• This becomes the hue, saturation and luminosity model (HSL)
RGB/CMYK
• RGB is additive and is a screen colour palette
The additive colours are red, green and blue, or RGB. Additive color starts with black and
adds red, green and blue light to produce the visible spectrum of colors. As more color is
added, the result is lighter. When all three colours are combined equally, the result is white
light.
• CMYK is subtractive and is a printing palette
The complementary colours (cyan, yellow, and magenta) are also commonly
referred to as the primary subtractive colours because each can be formed by
subtracting one of the primary additives (red, green, and blue) from white light.
Warm vs Cool
A warm colour can look like it is
in front of a cool background.
That means a cool colour can
make a subject pop out and
make a subject the focus
Equaluminant
colour:
Colour can be measured not
only by the hue but by the
luminance. Equaluminant
colours di er in hue but not in
luminance.
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• Apparently our brain processes luminosity rst. The colour gets to our
brain later. There is a theory that the human brain has two separate
pathways in the visual system
• 1. Colour blind - processes just the luminance
• 2. Process the hue rst but it’s slower.
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Monet
• If we look at Monet’s
paintings it takes us longer
and requires more e ort to
process the visual
information because it uses
hue not luminance
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Is it therefore a bad thing?
• No, it is neither good or bad
to only use hue or
equiluminant colours. It’s just
something to be aware of. Do
you maybe want people to
spend longer looking at your
images?
Advertising
• Advertising can be a quick guide to what
colour palettes are in fashion or on trend.
They will be on point constantly because
colour has a psychological impact on
people.
• Colour of the year is released by Pantone
• Advertising in uences product development
and purchasing decisions in industries
including fashion, graphics and packaging.
• In 2020, verdant greens, deep blues, soft
pink.
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Ideas for harmony
• 1. Plan. Look for locations that will match the out t for example. Or
products.
• 2. Experiment with di erent light temperatures is an option. Tungsten and
daylight can instantly give you warm and cool colours.
• 3. Feautures- to make eyes more prominent choose a suitable
background colour to create a nice harmony
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Ideas for harmony
• 4. Time. If outdoors make sure you choose the right time of day
depending on what you want to achieve. Direct sunlight will give you
strong saturated colours. Sunrise and sunset will be more pastel and
softer. 2 hours after sunrise will be the coolest for colour. 2 hours
before sunset will give you warmer colour. If you don’t want
saturated colours during the day, nd some shade.
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Ideas for harmony
• 5.Colour. if you are in the studio you can always change the colour in post
production when developing from a RAW le.
• A raw le is all the original information coming into the camera before you
compress it with jpeg processing
• 6. Texture. If you want you could add texture by using things like crystals,
piece of glass, mirrors, prism or even materials to create light, glares and
blur. But don’t overdo it. This is only if your image is very plain. Remember
to keep it subtle.
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Ideas for harmony
• The simpler the better
• Beige white and neutrals are the safest because any colour will go with
them
• Patterned and colourful clothes look best on solid colour backgrounds
• If outdoors look for location backgrounds that are in the models out t or
act as a complimentary colour
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Anne Liebowitz
She uses analogous scheme in
portraits. Her light is always soft.
Steven Klein
He goes for harsh light often but
this is one of his softer images.
He has gone for monochromatic
harmony here.
Steve McCurry
Quite often his pictures are
perfection for me. He is more
natural but you can always see
colour theory being used in his
work. He often uses
complimentary colours.
Yingna Zhang
Her light is always de ned but
soft
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